By the time it ended in an Eagle County courtroom last month, the hit-and-run case came to involve a star money manager, an up-and-coming young doctor, one of Colorado’s wealthiest men, Kobe Bryant’s defense attorney, a lawyer connected to a legal fight involving a $60 million gem and the chief of staff to the U.S. secretary of the interior.

And still, Mark Hurlbert, the boyish-faced district attorney for some of Colorado’s most famous playgrounds, insists he treated it like any other. Even now — one month after his plea bargain in the case stirred public outrage — Hurlbert says he simply did what he does dozens of other times a year: Look at the facts. Look at the people. Come to justice.

Was it justice that a crash that permanently scarred the doctor and threatened his career leaves so little legal mark on the perpetrator? Was it justice that a split second of the money manager’s life should unravel all that came before?

“It certainly made us think,” Hurlbert said recently. “Ultimately, I think the plea bargain was a good one, given everything in the case.”

He may be one of the few who think so.

The details of the case, spread nationwide by furious bloggers and activists, are well-known to many. On July 3, a new black Mercedes driven by money manager Martin Erzinger careened off a road near Edwards and hit bicyclist Steven Milo, an anesthesiologist on a liver transplant team at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York City. Milo was knocked 60 feet down the road. Erzinger, who said he had dozed off, stopped in a ditch and then drove on, claiming he was unaware he had hit anyone.

Hurlbert’s office charged Erzinger with a felony for leaving the scene of an accident but soon struck a deal allowing him to plead guilty to two misdemeanors.

That alone outraged many in the cycling community, as well as Milo, who suffered such disabling injuries that they made it difficult to work and forced him to lie flat in bed for weeks while his wife was eight months pregnant. Milo wanted to hear Erzinger admit he was guilty of a felony, even if a deal allowed for a deferred judgment that would wipe the felony away in a year or two.

When Hurlbert tried to defend the deal to the Vail Daily newspaper — saying, “Felony convictions have some pretty serious job implications for someone in Mr. Erzinger’s profession” — the public outrage compounded.

Erzinger is an executive at Morgan Stanley Smith Barney, where he manages more than $1 billion in client assets. The implication, the Internet masses surmised, was that justice is different for the rich in Hurlbert’s jurisdiction.

Hurlbert denies that, saying now that he was making a stray point about Erzinger being able to pay restitution, if required, and that the comment was blown out of proportion. The decision, he says, was much more complicated.

Looking at the facts, he says he believes he could have won a felony conviction, maybe even mandatory jail time. But, looking at the person, he wasn’t sure that’s what was best.

Erzinger, after all, was hardly a degenerate. His attorney — Richard Tegtmeier, who once represented one side in a legal battle involving a massive gem known as the Pearl of Allah — packed the court file with references to Erzinger’s charitable giving.

After the accident, Erzinger called and expressed sorrow to Milo’s father-in-law — Denver investment whiz Thomas Marsico, whose fortune Forbes magazine once estimated in the billions and who has known Erzinger for 20 years.

And, perhaps most surprisingly, Erzinger was a cyclist himself. At the time of the accident, his bike was laid across the back seat of his car.

“It just became the ultimate question of, ‘Is justice done by having him plead to a felony?’ ” Hurlbert said.

Hurlbert even argues that the two misdemeanors — which will stick with Erzinger for life and caused him to lose his driver’s license for a year — were harsher justice. A deferred-judgment felony would guarantee neither of those penalties, he said.

Milo, though, saw a prosecutor who wasn’t pushing for real justice and set about doing so himself.

He hired Hal Haddon, who famously represented Kobe Bryant when Hurlbert charged the pro basketball player with sex assault. Marsico said in court that he contacted Haddon on advice from former Colorado U.S. Attorney Tom Strickland, then chief of staff to Interior Secretary Ken Salazar.

Milo and Haddon scrutinized Erzinger’s story. If he thought he just ran off the road, why did he first tell the Mercedes roadside assistance operator, “I dozed off and hit the — or, didn’t hit anything”? Why was he slow to notify the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority of his felony charge, as required?

“This doesn’t seem like a man that’s repenting for his sins at all,” Milo said of Erzinger in court. “It seems like someone who’s completely calculated, manipulating the system right from the get-go and has a plan.”

At a December hearing, the judge accepted the plea deal.

“I’m not sure that I can promise you anything that ultimately is justice,” Judge Frederick Gannett said to Milo.

Since that hearing, life has not returned to normal for those involved.

Milo continues to suffer from his injuries, which cause numbness in his limbs and severe headaches. He declined to be interviewed for this article, but Haddon said Milo will need further surgeries. A civil suit is possible.

Erzinger could not be contacted for this article because he is in Haiti, where he is working off the 45 days of court-ordered community service at a remote orphanage, his attorney said.

He has kept his job at Morgan Stanley, where his duties have not changed. Had he pleaded guilty to a felony, Morgan Stanley spokesman James Wiggins said, “it would have had other implications for his employment.” Wiggins declined to elaborate.

And Hurlbert, though the heckling phone calls have stopped, believes he still has work to do to repair the damage the case caused. He wants to reach out to the cycling community to let them know that if they are wrongly injured in an accident, he will stand up for them.

He started with his wife, a cyclist.

“She thought it was a good plea,” he said, “once I explained everything.”

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